Joseph Sobran

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Joseph Sobran

Joseph Sobran (born February 23, 1946, Michigan) is an American journalist and writer, formerly with the National Review and currently a syndicated columnist. Today, a large part of his notoriety stems from his being accused of anti-semitism before being fired from the National Review.

Academic and professional career

Sobran graduated from Eastern Michigan University and recieved a bachelor's degree in English. He studied for a graduate degree in English, concentrating on Shakespearean studies, following his graduation. In the late 1960s, Sobran spent time lecturing on Shakespeare and English on a fellowship with the university.

In 1972, Sobran started working at William F. Buckley Jr's National Review magazine in 1972. He stayed twenty-one years, eighteen of them as senior editor, before being removed from the publication due to controversial charges.

Along with his work at National Review, Sobran spent 21 years as a commentator on the CBS Radio "Spectrum" program series, and is still a syndicated columnist, first with the Los Angeles Times and later with the Universal Press Syndicate. He is currently distributed by the Griffin Internet Syndicate.

Sobran also contributes regular columns to the Roman Catholic newsweekly The Wanderer, where he contributes a weekly column entitled "Washington Watch"

National Review controversy and charges of anti-Semitism

Sobran was ultimately fired from the National Review in 1993 after being accused of being an anti-Semite by Norman Podhoretz and others following a series of writings. Specifically, Podhoretz wrote that "Joe Sobran's columns...[are] anti-Semitic in themselves, and not merely 'contextually.'"

Sobran has also been criticized for his association with the Institute for Historical Review, which has been accused of being the "most active Holocaust denying organization in the United States" by the Roth Institute for The Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism & Racism and called neo-Nazi by Tom Palmer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. The Roth Institute and Palmer also criticize Sobran for his association with convicted Holocaust denier David Irving.[1]

In an article entitled "Jewish Power," which was published by the IHR, Sobran takes the position that "The 9/11 attacks would never have occurred except for the U.S. Government's Middle East policies, which are pretty much dictated by the Jewish-Zionist powers that be in the United States. The Zionists boast privately of their power, but they don't want the gentiles talking about it."[2]

Current political philosophy

In 2002, Joseph Sobran went from identifying as a paleoconservative to advocacy of a libertarian anarchocapitalism. In December 2002 he announced his philosophical and political shift to libertarian anarchism in Sobran's [3], where he cited inspiration by libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard.

Books and other publications

Sobran is the author of many books, including one about William Shakespeare, Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time (1997), where he endorses the Oxfordian theory that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the plays usually attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon. He is currently working on two books: one concerning Abraham Lincoln's presidency and the United States Constitution, and one concerning the poems of de Vere.

He is also the author of:

• Single Issues: Essays on the Crucial Social Questions - Human Life Press - 1983
• The Conservative Manifesto - Empire Books - 1984
• Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time - Free Press 1997
• Hustler: The Clinton Legacy - Griffin Communications - 2000

Sobran has produced a number of published articles and speeches, including:

• The Church Today: Less Catholic Than the Pope? - National Committee of Catholic Laymen - 1979
• Power and Betrayal - Griffin Communications - 1998
• Anything Called a Program is Unconstitutional - Griffin Communications - 2001

External links

Sobran's writings

• Sobran's: The Real News of the Month -- Official site.
• Archive of Joseph Sobran's articles.
• Archive of Joseph Sobran's newsletter.
• The Writings of Joseph Sobran hosted on David Irving's Focal Point Publications website.

Articles dealing with the anti-Semitism charge

• How I Was Fired By Bill Buckley by Joseph Sobran, hosted on Federation of States.
• Joseph Sobran and Historical Revisionism by Mark Weber published in the Journal of Historical Review of the Institute for Historical Review, Fall 1987.
• For Fear of The Jews presentation at the 14th conference of the Institute for Historical Review 2002
• In search of anti-semitism, National Review, 12/30/91, William F. Buckley, Jr.

References

• Joseph Sobran. "Jewish Power," The Journal of Historical Review, volume 18 no. 1 (January/February, 1999), p. 28.